Best practices for product management in news organizations

Conceptually, that is a leap for people from traditional reporting and editing roles. We are used to buying “products” in stores or online. We hear tech people describe a new app or service as a “product.” And all that makes sense. But we traditionally did not think of news that way.

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Product managers are responsible for overseeing a news product that is both an editorial success, a commercial success, and is built efficiently and functions well.

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The news you publish, in aggregate and over time, is also a product — in its various forms as a physical thing (a newspaper) or a digital service (a website or app) that you sell or distribute to a target market of consumers.

And in the era of the “personal news cycle” — where abundant information and constant connectivity gives each individual control of her news consumption — our news products must be good and targeted to succeed. They must know who their users are, what they need, how they need it, and deliver a satisfying experience.

That is what a product manager does. And increasingly this role, which has long been a staple of the tech world, is emerging in news organizations.

Product managers are responsible for thinking about what users (your readers or viewers) need from the whole of that product; what their experience of it is like; how it could be more convenient or valuable to them. This means they are responsible for simultaneously considering the business and marketing strategy, the technological execution, and yes, the editorial direction of the news. Good product managers weave all three into a single strategy — overseeing a news product that is both an editorial success, a commercial success, and is built efficiently and functions well.

The American Press Institute recently invited more than 40 product-manager types from leading news organizations for one of our Thought Leader Summits, to explore this increasingly vital role. From that day of intimate discussions we have distilled in this white paper the best practices and insights that all news organizations can learn from.

This white paper is intended to help several types of people: People in product management roles who want new practices and ideas; Managers trying to ensure their organization puts the right process in place to have someone managing the experience and value that users get from your news; and journalists, designers, developers, marketers, or anyone else in the organization who contributes to making content or building products and wants to play a better role in making the products successful.

The ideas, and in some cases the words themselves, are drawn from the few dozen participants of our summit. We don’t imply that every summit participant endorses every idea or view expressed in this white paper, but collectively they deserve credit for inspiring the wisdom it contains.

Sarah Milstein took the lead on organizing the summit and recruiting the participants, as a consultant to API. She is VP of programs at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, with a diverse background in journalism, lean startup methods, and product development.

The summit participants were:

Kelly Alfieri, Executive Director of Special Editorial Projects, New York Times

Jeff Anderson, Digital Media Director, Virginian-Pilot / Pilot Media

Brett Atkinson, General Manager – ksl.com, Deseret Digital Media

Daniel Bachhuber, now Principal at Hand Built, former Director of Engineering, Fusion